The Fencible Girl, Chapter 13: First Encounter

Marshall McLuhan, smart bugger that he was, said the best way to tell if you would like a book was to turn to page 69. As it happens, Chapter 13 of The Fencible Girl starts on page 69. So...

Rawiri and Winnie took less than ten minutes to reach the beach called Takapuripuri. The tide was racing out – there was now less than two feet of water in the bay and within ten or twenty minutes there would be half a mile of mudflat between them and the water. There was not a moment to lose.

They both avoided looking at the churned up stretch of sand a few yards away where the raiders had driven their captives on board the waka with shouts, kicks and blows with the flat of their taiaha spears.

Rawiri plunged into the undergrowth on the foreshore and came back dragging a light dugout canoe less than four yards long. A single outrigger shaped liked a solid, miniature canoe was attached to the main hull by two poles lashed across the gunwales, or top edges of the hull. The design was simple – being double-ended, the craft could travel in either direction in order to always have the outrigger on the side away from the wind, keeping it stable in all weathers.

Wasting not a moment they threw their loads into the hull. Winnie jumped in while Rawiri heaved the craft forward and threw himself aboard, jumping into position and paddling in long, strong strokes. The light craft shot forward and within minutes they were out of the tidal flats and on the outer edges of the channel.

While Rawiri kept the craft steadily into the wind, in water deep enough to not run aground but still clear of the outgoing tidal flow racing towards the distant harbour mouth, Winnie opened the bundle wrapped in the big mat. She passed the musket in its holster to Rawiri, who clamped its upper, open end between his legs to keep it dry. Then she laid the pole across the outriggers and the long side of the mat beside it. Taking Rawiri’s largest bone fish hook with its finely woven flax line attached she swiftly, using a long running stitch, fastened the long edge to the pole.

She fastened the three strongest cords they had to the top of the long pole she had chosen for the mast and tied one to the stern outrigger arm, one looped around the pointed bow of the waka and the third to the side opposite the outrigger, where the arm at the front crossed the hull.

Then she changed places with Rawiri. Although Winnie had never used a paddle before, it was quite simple to paddle this way and that to maintain a steady position pointing into the wind so the sail would not catch.

As Rawiri set to work, they heard cries from the shore, now some two hundred yards away. Winnie’s heart sank. It was her parents, accompanied by three of Edward’s men. She could hear them clearly across the water.

“Winnie!” called her father. “Come back. Please don’t do this! Come back now.” She glanced at them, feeling her heart wrench with the conflict between wanting to obey her parents and her compelling need to help Rawiri. He suppressed any acknowledgement and went on rigging the sails, raising the pole and sail upright against the forward outrigger arm where it crossed the waka. 

“Winnie! Come back this instant, young woman. How dare you!” She could see her father touch Freddie by the arm, shaking his head. She shook his hand away, repeating her demand for Winnie to return. Her anger made it easier for Winnie to ignore her. Rawiri, who had only his mother to whom he felt deeply protective, lost his resolve and looked at Winnie with pleading eyes. He knew only too well that if it had been his mother on the shore he would have turned back.

Winnie tried to think of some way Rawiri, who had never as far as she knew sailed anything, could carry on by himself, and failed. If she returned, if that is she could persuade him to take her back, it was all over for him and his chance of rescuing his mother. Rawiri stood the pole with the three cords attached up in the boat, against the front outrigger arm. After gently tightening the three main cords Winnie had put in place, Rawiri took more short lengths of cord and lashed the pole to the arm, using more lengths to secure the pole however else he could. While Edward called out again in a more encouraging tone, Winnie tried to focus on admiring Rawiri’s speed and method. The previous year she had seen a music teacher re-string a violin; he first put all the strings in place, and then tuned them up one by one until they were all correctly tensioned and in tune. Rawiri took the same approach, first choosing the right lengths and thicknesses of cord for each position, and then ‘tuning’ them one by one until the makeshift mast was locked firmly in position, each lashing tightened to perfection. 

After watching him for a couple of minutes, during which he looked at her twice, seeing her struggle against her father’s calls, he just said, ”Please. Please, Winnie.” She could stand it no longer and started to paddle along the current parallel to the shore, driving the boat forward until her parents were almost out of sight as they followed the boat’s path along the shore. Just before she lost sight of them around a point, she turned and saw her mother with her head in her hands, sobbing, with her father’s arms around her. At that moment, with the paddle in her hand, she came closer to turning back than at any point in the escape. Finally she waved. “Don’t worry – I will be back. I love you. I love you.” She tried to shout but her voice choked in her throat. Shaking her head to clear her feelings Winnie turned and dug the paddle in hard. Within seconds they were gone. Rawiri saw the tears pouring down her face and said, “Thank you. Thank you, Winnie. It will be all right. They will forgive.”

Winnie wasn’t so sure but there was no turning back now. She rested and let the sail swing free for the five more minutes he took to complete the task.

When all was ready, Rawiri returned to the paddle position and brought the waka around into the wind. As the wind drew the sail across the boat Winnie grabbed the lower cord. Rawiri turned the waka stern to the wind and the sail swung out and filled with a powerful jerk.

The effect was so dramatic they were taken by surprise – for a second, as the boat leapt forward, the outrigger reared up in the air and only Rawiri’s lightning reaction in throwing his weight onto it prevented a disaster which could have ended their expedition then and there. Once steadied and brought into the wind the little waka with the two youngsters aboard took off like a horse under the spur. Within seconds they were flying along at a speed that unnerved them both – it was certainly faster than Rawiri had ever travelled on water before. A huge, exultant grin lit up his face and, for the first time since Winnie had met him, he roared with laughter. Even Kura joined in the fun, flying up into the air above the boat and ducking and diving around their heads for several minutes before settling on Winnie’s leg, fluttering her wings to steady herself against the wind and the movement of the boat.

In the note to her father that she had placed under his saddle, Winnie had promised him to remain safe and contact him when she could. But she had not revealed what Rawiri had explained, adding to his earlier comment that he thought they were heading for the Hauraki Gulf. Rawiri, clever as he was, had worked out that there was nowhere else for such a large party to be based. South of Auckland was densely populated by the well-organised Tainui tribe. North was held by a variety of smaller tribes dominated by the Ngapuhi, a federation of independent sub-tribes. Although not as organised as Tainui, with frequent feuds and inter-village raids, their territory was still too thickly populated for so many warriors and slaves to remain hidden.

The final point, which confirmed his theory for the pair, was the question of why they were taking so many slaves. Not just those of Rawiri’s village, but the others her father had told about. The gang was up to something big, needing up to a hundred workers. This meant that they must be based in some unpopulated region within reach of the waka.  Only one place met that description – somewhere in or across the Hauraki Gulf, the wide body of water between the east coast of the mainland and the long mountainous peninsula that stretched north, twenty miles away on the other side of the water. The gulf contained numerous islands, but the larger ones were inhabited, the smaller too small to conceal any large undertaking. But the peninsula itself had been so emptied of population by Hongi Hika’s massacres that large tracts were still uninhabited thirty years later.

Although currently crossing the Manukau Harbour on the other side of the mainland they were making towards one of the narrow points on the island where a river flowing into the Manukau harbour was only a short haul overland to the head of a river feeding into the gulf. These places where the two coasts were very close to each other had long been used by Maori as ‘portages’ for their canoes. They would paddle up one river, drag their vessel across land and launch into the other.

The most important portage was at Otahuhu, the site of the shortest crossing. Both Rawiri and Winnie doubted the raiders would use this because of the Fencible fort that commanded a complete end-to-end view of the busy slipway and road.

Rawiri knew the names but not the locations of the others, while Winnie, from having studied the large chart on the wall of her father’s home office, had some idea of their location but not which was which.

Their only chance of knowing where the raiders would cross would be to catch up until they had them in sight and keep as great a distance between them as possible.

In this respect both wind and fortune were with them. They sailed for almost an hour south-east toward Otahuhu, during which time Rawiri fed Kura and the two bagged tui from a large bottle of honey water. The wind, as Rawiri had predicted, held true and steady and even increased in strength on the open water, driving the little craft through the water at the speed of a galloping horse. Suddenly Rawiri gave a shout and pointed. Sure enough, by squinting into the distance Winnie made out the form of the great waka taua, white-tipped paddles flashing in the sunlight as they rose and fell in perfect unison. It was making good speed but the belting breeze drove the little waka before it at twice the pace of their quarry. 

To avoid coming up upon it, Rawiri altered their course to due east, putting them on a long line that steadily brought them closer to the big canoe, one that they could easily shorten or lengthen by small adjustments of their course.

Within twenty or so minutes they were as close as they thought wise. Rawiri’s spirits soared when he realised that they were now in control of situation and, short of an accident or failing wind, the waka could do nothing to shake them off. He leaned forward at the paddle, grinning with intense, joyful focus, the expression of a hunter who knows he has his game cornered and is merely choosing the moment of the kill. He altered their course again to further avoid coming too close and arousing suspicion on board the big waka.

Their intentions were in any case well hidden by the number of other craft on the vast harbour. The two hours before and after low tide were prime fishing time; at least fifteen boats of various sorts were scattered across the water, some areas of which were now separate channels between flat expanses exposed by the tides. Groups of women and children gathered shellfish from the rich beds of cockles and the larger pipi, shaped like a flattened egg, big, tasty and nutritious. In some shallows the even larger round flat-sided scallops, most delicious of all and usually found in deeper water, could be gathered by hand. A two-masted schooner was cautiously navigating the channels under light sail on its way towards the port, having crossed the fearsome Manukau sandbar at the harbour’s entrance a few hours earlier on the high tide, the safest time to make the run.

From the position and direction of the big war canoe they could see it had skirted around the southern reaches of the harbour to avoid coming too close to other boats. Winnie and Rawiri were under no such restriction and were able to set a straight course through the fishers, not all of them Maori. Winnie’s thoughts returned constantly to the tremendous trouble she was in with her parents. She hoped that one of the two or three European fishing boats would notice them and report their well-being to her father once back on land; she had no doubt Edward would soon put out the word for everyone in the community to be on the look-out.

As they flew along, keeping their distance from the big waka, Winnie noticed a sailing dinghy labouring along in the direction of the great canoe. After keeping an eye on the boat as they drew closer she became certain that this was indeed the lone sailor’s objective. She could also see that the man was facing difficulties. His sail showed an ugly tear about half way up the mast where the fabric had torn away. Although also rowing strongly, he often paused to bail water with a billy, the basic tin can with a wire handle used by workers and travellers to brew tea and cook food.

Bit by bit Winnie started to feel sure this was the same lone European they had come across that night in the forest, a feeling heightened by a return of the weird sense that she knew him, or had met him somewhere before. He was still too far away for her to be able to make out his features, but she kept her gaze on him in the hope that she might finally recognise him.

She was roused from her staring by a shout from Rawiri, who was pointing at the waka, now some thousand yards distant.

So far, the waka had appeared to be heading straight for Otahuhu, which could now be made out in the distance. Rawiri’s call had been to alert her to the fact that it had turned to the south, heading down harbour, no doubt to one of the longer, less-used portages. Within a few minutes of their holding this new course the man, who was about the same distance from the waka and still closing, quit rowing and, after hurling a few billies-full of water from the bilges, appeared to be fossicking through something out of sight in his boat. Soon she could see he had something under his arm and was struggling with it in some way. Next moment his intentions became clear as he threw both hands in the air and released a bird, which circled the boat two or three times in an ever higher and wider arc before flying off in a direct line to Onehunga. It was a pigeon. 

The man now changed course, rowing hard and with an almost desperate energy, heading straight for Otahuhu about two miles distant. As she watched, Winnie saw the sail, now receiving the full force of the wind, ripped further until it was almost in two almost useless parts. 

Again she heard a shout from Rawiri, this time a fierce cry of alarm. He pointed again at the waka. Horrified, she saw that it had changed course again and was now pursuing the stranger. She tried to calculate whether he would reach the safety of the settlement before being caught. He was a powerful oarsman with seemingly unlimited energy, with the wind behind him and providing some push even to the broken sail, but the waka had now picked up speed. She could see a man in a cloak moving up and down the length of the boat, obviously shouting, gesticulating with his spear and even, once or twice, using it to beat one of the paddlers on the back.

It now seemed likely but not certain that he would be caught. He was rowing at a tremendous pace, pausing every couple of minutes to frantically bail water before returning to his task. To Winnie’s alarm Rawiri had changed heading to intercept the canoe and was pointing at it and shouting, “Look! Look!”

Winnie’s heart sank as she made out the cause for Rawiri’s alarm. Two warriors had abandoned their paddles and were making their way through the captives, kicking them and striking them with what Winnie saw were muskets. They were going to shoot the fleeing stranger.

She looked back at Rawiri. He responded by nodding his head toward the musket holster lashed to the mast. There was no mistaking his meaning. Winnie felt as if a steel band was being tightened around her chest as she sized up the situation and the ways it could go. She had taken the musket without having a fixed idea of its purpose; it was simply to equip themselves as well as possible for what could be a dangerous venture. Now she was confronted by a hideous choice – sit by and watch this man be shot or take up the musket herself and … She pushed the thought out of her mind. The Maori were shooting from a moving canoe; they were still quite some distance away; reloading a musket took most people quite a long time and they may get only two or three shots away before he was safe.

Almost as they formed in her mind she saw the arguments fail. As she watched, she could not avoid noticing that the great heavy waka cleaved as steady as a rock through the small chop on the harbour, and that the paddlemaster’s calls had produced another significant speed increase. They fired their first pair of shots and, as expected, missed. 

But the second shots came quickly – far too quickly. The Maori were doing something ingenious, something she had never seen or heard of. The standard military procedure was to pour gunpowder down the barrel, then remove the ramrod from its groove underneath the barrel, use it to ram paper wadding down the barrel to hold the powder in place, then drop in the lead ball and ram that home, return the rod to its groove and finally shoot. The average soldier could do this twice in one minute, a fast one thrice. She had counted on the Maori taking considerably longer, giving the stranger time to get away.

But even from this distance she could see that they were doing away with the time-consuming business with the ramrod altogether. They seemed to simply pour in the powder, add a piece of wadding, then the ball, then compact the load by slamming the butt of the gun once or twice on the decking before firing, then quickly repeating the procedure. 

“Shoot! Shoot!” shouted Rawiri, not understanding her reluctance and gesticulating at the musket still in its holster. They could both now see that unless she did so, the stranger was a dead man.

Although the distance between themselves and the waka was at least four hundred yards, Winnie knew she held a deadly edge.

Among Major Meldon’s various interests was a consuming passion for military technology, above all the various kinds of soldier’s musket. 

Always up to date with the latest developments, Edward had seen to the delivery in England of twenty of the latest Springfield musketoons, a shortened version of the standard musket. But these were special: the barrels, normally a smooth tube, came with long, spiralling grooves on the inside and had mounted sights, new features normally found only in advanced types of sporting rifles. The grooves, or ‘rifling’ caused the lead ball to leave the barrel spinning rapidly, making the ball travel much further and in a reliably straight line – a huge advantage over the older smooth-barrelled weapons. 

With these, instead of a group of soldiers blazing away in a barrage, the individual soldier could pick a target, aim, and expect to hit it. This revolutionary weapon would change the nature of warfare. It was one of these precious, state of the art guns that Winnie was now going to use, accurate to an incredible five hundred yards in the right conditions. These conditions were far from perfect, but the range was now less than three hundred yards, and closing, and Winne was a crack shot.

Although scarcely able to breathe, she took the musket from its holster and spoke. “I’m going to put the barrel on your shoulder. When I am in place, let go the sail and bring the boat to face straight into the wind and waves. Do you understand?” 

He nodded, pale under his brown colouring.

“When I’m ready I’ll nod. You must stay as still as you can. The shot will make a very loud noise. You might not hear properly for a few minutes. Do you understand?”

Another nod.

Winnie desperately fended off the thought that she was going to try to injure or even kill another human being, fixing her resolve by remembering the dead children at Parekaroro.

Winnie took a cartridge from her father’s case and quickly loaded the musket, going through the step-by-step routine she knew so well. She tore the top off the paper cartridge with her teeth and put the lead ball on top in her mouth, both to hold it and lubricate it with her spit. She carefully but quickly poured the powder down the barrel, then screwed up the paper to make a wad. She slid the long brass ramrod from its groove under the barrel and rammed the wad and powder down hard. Finally dropping the ball down the barrel she tamped it home with one more push of the rod and returned the rod to its groove. All this took her less than twenty seconds – a fast time even for a top musketeer.

She knelt on one knee before Rawiri in the classic front rank shooting position and lowered the barrel to rest on his shoulder. Two more shots rang out – five times in less than a minute, Winnie thought. Unbelievable. A quick look confirmed that they were still shooting standing up and had both missed, which was good, but the range between them and their target was closing fast, which was not. Luckily they were standing well away from the captives on the platform surrounding the majestic and beautifully carved prow, giving Winnie a clear shot. 

Rawiri let go the sail and let the boat’s momentum spin it around into the wind, holding it as still there as he could manage; not as steady as she wished, but Rawiri deftly adjusted his posture slightly to provide her a solid support. At the last minute, she thought of the possible effects of the recoil. The last thing they needed was for the barrel to kick up and knock her friend unconscious. 

Leaning forward she gently pushed Rawiri’s head to one side, gesturing with the palm of her hand that he was to stay in that position. He gave a slight nod to show he understood, bending his neck even further to stay clear of the barrel. She extended her back leg and braced it strongly against the outrigger and took aim. 

Now Winnie put to use the training her father had given her with the sporting guns they had used in South Africa. She knew how far to aim in front of a moving target depending on how fast they were moving and how far away, that is, to shoot to the place the target would be at when the bullet arrived. She was also skilled in allowing for the effect wind had on a bullet as it flew through the air. The barrel still moved slightly, but she fixed her eye on a spot about a foot in front of the nearer warrior and tracked it steadily with the waka’s forward motion. The man was quickly reloading, which kept him in a fairly still position. She breathed out slowly to calm herself and nodded to Rawiri. As the barrel swung slightly with the movement of the boat to meet her imaginary target point, she fired. The recoil pushed her backwards but she held her position. Rawiri jumped with the shock but reassured her with a nod.

As the wind quickly blew the smoke clear she saw that she had missed, but must have been close enough for the man to hear or feel the ball whistle past. The waka was still closing on the man in the boat, but now the warriors’ attention was divided.

Winnie noticed with surprise but also relief that, in spite of the fact that she was engaged in the deadly and horrifying process of taking human life, an extraordinary calm had settled on her. She felt no fear, and neither reluctance nor eagerness. She was in a state of…efficiency. That was the only word. She felt perfectly efficient. These thoughts flashed through her mind as her hands raced through the familiar routine of reloading. They could hear shouts from across the water – a glance showed that many of the crew had spotted them and were pointing their way. She noted with satisfaction that her first target had now finished reloading and had turned to fire upon her. She took up the firing position again, knowing that her target would be attempting to steady himself, offering an easier target.

She nodded again to Rawiri. She took aim and fired while her target was still taking aim. A split second after her shot he too fired. Through clearing smoke she saw his head snap back and he toppled backwards into the water, out of sight. A small hole appeared in their top of their sail. Rawiri roared “Maté! (Dead!) Maté! Ta heke é!”

The effect of her shot was dramatic. At least half the warriors dropped their paddles and scrambled for their muskets. The waka slowed dramatically. Instantly they saw the big European from the forest leap to his feet, roaring commands. Some warriors responded, others didn’t. He fired one pistol and the air and levelled the other at a nearby warrior who had started loading his musket. The man quickly returned to paddling, as did his fellows, but the delay had given their quarry the chance to widen the gap between them.

By now, Winnie had reloaded. Checking the stranger she saw that he was rowing more strongly than ever and was now within half a mile of the shore. She had improved his chances considerably but not enough to be certain. 

She knelt again and lowered the barrel to Rawiri’s shoulder. The lone musketeer had recovered his senses and was raising his musket for another shot. Two more were coming forward to join him. As the waka following the man was now closer to their little craft it was an easier shot. Going for safety, she lowered the barrel slightly, breathed out and squeezed the trigger.

The remaining marksman doubled over, dropped his musket and, clutching his side, toppled off the bow into the water.

“Quick Rawiri. Let’s go!”

With the sail flapping in the wind by her side, she had no difficulty grabbing the line while Rawiri spun the little boat round away from the wind. The sail snapped tight and they shot forward, rapidly picking up speed. The big waka, now less than three hundred yards away, turned to chase them, but a few seconds’ observation reassured Winnie that as long as the wind kept up they would never catch them. Rawiri headed straight for the Otahuhu channel, less than fifteen hundred yards away now. The tide had slackened to still during the exchange of fire and the wind was carrying them towards the shore.

“No Rawiri. Not Otahuhu. Father may have sent word and they may well be looking for me. Follow the wind and take the quickest way to land.”

The landscape ahead consisted of a few farmlets separated by areas of well-developed second growth forest, and it was for one of the larger forested areas that they were headed. 

Once more, Winnie checked the waka and was worried to see that it had given up the chase and was now broadside on to them. The entire crew had dropped their paddles to load their muskets. With thirty or muskets blazing away in the quick-fire Maori style they were far from safe, even at the slowly lengthening range, still about three hundred yards as they were not heading straight away from the waka. 

The shooting started. At least half a dozen bullets hit the boat and the sail, but not only were neither of them were hit, she saw a ball fall into the boat after failing to pierce the sail. The range was now about three hundred and fifty yards and the firing was constant. Suddenly Rawiri yelped and clutched his right arm, although still managing to retain his grip on the paddle.

He let go again and grabbed the paddle with both hands. Winnie saw a nasty bruise starting to spread out from a blackened spot on his arm, but there was no blood. Looking down she saw the ball rolling around at his feet.

She burst into a peal of relieved laughter. Rawiri glared at her, furious that she could think of his injury as a joke.

“I’m sorry, Rawiri, I’m sorry. But don’t you see – the bullet didn’t hurt you – they are too far away now. Look!” She retrieved the ball from between his feet and showed it to him. “We’re safe! We’re safe!”

At this, Rawiri too started to laugh. For a good minute or more they were both shaking with laughter, grinning hugely at each other. Rawiri clapped her on the back once or twice. It was the laughter of release, of the end of fear, and it felt good. Even the sudden sobering recollection that she, a girl of twelve, had just killed a man and wounded another, possibly fatally, could not dampen her happiness at having saved the stranger and escaped with their lives.

Shots continued to ring out, but now they were falling in the water between twenty and fifty yards behind them. It struck them both as vastly comical and their laughter continued to ring in the breeze. Even Kura seemed to share their delight, wheeling and diving around their heads, once giving Winnie a playful nip on the ear. As she watched she saw the waka turn and resume its southerly course, which relieved her completely.  They were safe.

But then she saw in the distance that the European in the stern had a long spyglass to his eye trained directly upon them. Instinctively she ducked her head to conceal her face under her bonnet but knew that her move was too late. He would have been observing them throughout the barrage.

They may be safe for the moment, but they were now also known. As they closed on the shore, Winnie felt the cold chill of returning fear.